Beautiful Disaster

"I love you."

Simple words but they hold so much when I rasp them out, and she gifts me another of those sad but real smiles.

"I know. Never doubted that. And won’t start now, either."

We remain staring into each other’s eyes for a long time, so close, and not just in a physical sense. I know that she is waiting for me to say something, but it’s hard enough to think as it is. When I finally break the silence, the only thing that leaves my lips is, "I don’t know."

Bella is silent for a moment, then lets one of her hands slide down to stroke my cheek softly.

"Don’t know what?"

"What I want to do now. If I still feel anything for him. If I even want to."

She blinks for a moment, taking in my words, and I can tell that they surprise her a little.

"You don’t know or you don’t want to know?"

The doubt in her voice makes me laugh, but it’s a dry, pained sound.

"I’m not just another idiot in a long line who’s been living in denial. I really can’t say. It would be so much easier if it were just that, then I could just stop trying not to

whatever it is I do. Like him, need him, want him."

A light frown appears between her brows, and for a moment I get lost in studying the elegant curve of her mouth.

"But there was a time that wasn’t so?"

My pained inhale is all the answer she needs, but true to her previous words, she doesn’t seem horrified or even put off.

"But you got over him?" she presumes.

"Kind of."

"That’s not a no."

"But also not a yes."

We keep looking at each other then, and after a while it all just gets too heavy for me.

"Do you mind if I just hold you?"

"Of course not," she whispers, then brushes another kiss over my lips before she turns around, ready to be tugged into my embrace. I mold my body against hers, with her head pillowed on one of my arms, while I snake the other over her abdomen. We stay like that for a while, our fingers entwined over her stomach, both of us lost in thought.

I have no idea how much time has passed – it feels like hours, but has probably only been minutes – when I hear her clear her throat.

"You know, I really miss what we had. And I’m not even talking about the mind-blowing sex. Just

us. Like after that first threesome, when we were

all lying in a heap of limbs on the couch with two boxes of pizza and a movie playing, and life was just so uncomplicated. I want that back."

Her words make me yearn for just that, but I know that we can never go back to that. Too much has happened. When I tell her that, she’s silent for a moment.

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why can’t we go back to that?"

"Uhm, because of the whole shit that went down?"

"That’s maybe a reason to make it harder to get there again, but it didn’t just turn our lives into a one-way road."

I’m stunned for a moment, and Bella uses that to turn over slightly until she can look back at my face.

"We’re living in a relationship where expressing our love for each other comes with things like you letting a scary woman cane the soles of my feet.

We already make the rules for our world – there’s nothing impossible there if we just want to make it happen. Stress on if we want."

"I feel like we’re going in circles."

"Not really," she snorts, then get serious again. "The real question right now isn’t what was, or what is, but what we want it to be. Do you want Jazz to be with us again? I’m not talking about you falling head over heels madly in love with him. No solution that will work as it is until the end of our days.

But right now, do you still want him? Or do you want him to be gone from our bed and house forever?"

I mull that over in my head for a while.

"No."

"No as in you don’t want him anymore?"

"No, I don’t want him gone."

We keep looking deeply into each other’s eyes for several moments longer, before I slowly extricate myself from her, then draw her to her feet with me.

Never losing eye contact I kiss her one last time before I take her hand in mine and gently tug her towards the door.

"Come on, I think we already lost enough time in the last six months."

Chapter 26

My resolve falters when I reach the top of the stairs leading down into the living room. It’s only a moment, barely long enough for Bella to walk by me so she ends up being the one to tug me after her and not the other way round, but in those seconds panic grips me hard. Suddenly I don’t know what to do because everything seems like the perfect recipe for disaster, and I just want to go back and hide in the bedroom untill-

But this is where my thoughts grind to a halt and I’m able to calm myself again. I’ve been hiding and waiting for months, and a quick glance at the set of Bella’s jaw tells me that she thinks now is the best time to stop doing that and move on.

Moments later we reach the room below and Bella lets go of my hand, but only after caressing my forearm lovingly.

"I’ll go make some more coffee," she murmurs softly, then leaves me standing there on my own.

Looking over from her to where Jazz is sitting on the couch, I have to fight a new wave of apprehension, but one of a wholly different kind than before.

The way his shoulders tense I can tell that he’s aware of our presence, but he doesn’t yet look up from where he’s slumped, his face buried in his hands. I try to remember if I’ve ever seen him that down, but come up blank. Not even after Alice has kicked him out has he seemed so lost.

I hate seeing him like that, even more so because I’m part of the problem.

And with that realization comes another – I’m so sick of feeling like shit all the time, with everything being plagued with issues and every situation about as awkward as it can get.

Using my newfound resolve to change that, I sit down on the sofa on the far side from Jazz. He doesn’t move for a while, but then I hear him sigh softly as if he’s gathering his strength. When he finally straightens and looks at me he’s still weary, but I can see in his eyes that he’s trying to steel himself for what’s to come. Guess I can’t hold that against him.

"If you want me to go, just say so, I’ll spare you the bother of having to kick me out."

"No one’s going to kick you out," I reply, surprised at how steady my voice sounds when inside I’m still feeling like I’m totally blindsided.

Jazz looks surprised for a moment, then accepts my words with a nod, and we both keep staring at each other until Bella joins us with the coffee.

"Gee, tone it down a notch, both of you, you’re making my skin crawl with all that heavy, meaningful silence," she jokes, then sits down. Just not between us where there’s the most space on the sofa, but on my left, squeezing herself between me and the armrest at the end of the seat. To make room for her I have to move towards Jazz, and I pointedly glance at her less than subtle hint, which she of course ignores.

The silence continues to stretch in all its awkwardness while we’re busy caffeinating ourselves. And it just keeps getting worse by the minute, until finally I’ve reached a point where I just can’t let it drag on anymore.

Straightening, I lean back, not quite incidentally snaking my arm around Bella to keep close to her. She smiles a little at that but doesn’t comment, nor does she lean into me, either.

Turning back to where Jazz is studying us, I try to come up with something worthwhile to say, but as my mind is still sluggish, I decide to stick with being blunt. So far that has served us all well today.